


A Rose By Any Other Name

by Skasha



Series: The Healer and The Bard [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Gore, M/M, Mild Angst, Minor Background Anders/Nathaniel Howe, Pro Mage, THIS STORY HAS A HAPPY ENDING, Tags will be updated as chapters are posted, a very very brief Acrophobia warning for the very beginning of the first chapter, chantry apologists can quite frankly kiss my ass, dream logic became Justice is from the fade so therefore he’d use dream logic, heavily implied SEVERE memory loss, kinda depends on what your definition of dead is to be honest, minor canon divergence from lore in DAI because some of the stuff they retconned was REALLY stupid, part of a series but you don’t need to read all of it to read this, pro Anders, temporary major character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-10-14 12:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20600897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skasha/pseuds/Skasha
Summary: Justice has been alive for a very, very long time. As luck would have it he got to experience three major turning points; his own, Anders’, and Hawke’s.





	1. Cry

**Author's Note:**

> I find it interesting that in the Dragon Age series the spirits and demons have names for themselves, but Justice doesn’t for some unexplained reason and just asks folks to call him by the virtue he represents. What’s more, if “The Maker” really was the being that made all of the spirits then there is no reason that Justice wouldn’t know at least a little about him, and yet according to his dialogue in Awakening he doesn’t know. And finally, Awakening also established that it’s possible for a mortal to turn into a demon, demons are shown to just be corrupted spirits, and Cole -a spirit- is able to turn into a human. Put all of that together, shake liberally, and we have the headcanon I’ve been sitting on for a few years now. (Someone please come scream with me.)
> 
> (Chapter 1 is sfw, chapter 2 is mature, and chapter 3 is nsfw. I'll be updating the rating and tags as I go along.)

One of Justice’s earliest -clearest- memories was of crying. 

Not his of course, but the sound was still incredibly jarring. 

It was that sound of a child wailing that brought him forth, and the need to protect that solidified his form into what he became. He had memories from before that moment but they were fuzzy… Disjointed images. Something about being in an enormous towering library that spiraled far _far_ up into the sky. It had looked so peaceful and then suddenly the building _violently_ ripped apart for no apparent reason. Bits and pieces of walls and floors disappeared in an instant as though they had never existed. And then screams. Falling. _Everyone was falling. **He** _was falling. He remembered falling from such a dizzying height. Which was strange since spirits aren’t subject to gravity, and it was even stranger because in the memory the fact that he was falling had absolutely _terrified_ him. 

The ground rose up to meet him and then the memory of falling ended with a sudden wet sounding crack.

And then nothing. 

And then the next thing he was aware of was the sound of a little girl crying in the dark. She needed someone to protect her. It was his duty to stand guard between- between… Hadn’t he been doing something else before he heard the little girl? His lights swirled in panicked confusion. 

Something was missing. 

Then he heard the noise again. 

Crying. 

There was a child crying. She needed someone to protect her.

He rose up, a faint spatter of silver sparks fell from his frame before fading away and disappearing with a certain finality. He was unsteady and deeply disoriented at first, so much so that he never saw those last sparks. The need to protect pushed him forward. He pulled in swirls of energy from the fade, solidifying him into a steady vaguely humanoid shape made of light. The little girl had been backed into a corner where she was curled up on the ground shaking. One wall was made of very finely cut stone one moment but would flicker and transform into polished wood and then gold and then back to stone. The other wall was made of bones and rot and decay. 

And in front of the girl stood two demons.

“This one is _mine._ She is practically _singing_ her fear. _Delicious._” Crooned the fear demon, the spider legs on his back creaked with excitement.

The desire demon next to him sneered at her companion, “You claimed the last two. She _wants._ She wants so many things; home, safety, but she wants to be found by her mother especially. That’s _my_ territory.” The fear demon snarled and the argument between the two began to escalate. The girl shook and tried to curl up on herself even more. 

The newly awoken spirit continued to solidify as he approached till standing before them he was a figure clad in armor. Sword and shield in hand. “Demons! Leave this child alone!” He bellowed out. His voice echoed strangely in the fade. Had it always sounded like that?

The two demons paused in their argument and looked over at him. 

The child hiccuped and continued to cry.

The fear demon swirled in place, curiosity and anger creeped off of him in greasy tendrils. The desire demon arched a delicate eyebrow and looked him up and down, quiet waves of mild curiosity drifted from her. 

The desire demon broke the awkward silence, “It’s rude to enter someone else’s territory without their permission, darling, and _I_ certainly didn’t invite **you** in.” Her tail gave a small swish and she turned again to look back at the child. Clearly dismissing him. 

“That’s what I’VE been saying!” snapped the fear demon turning back to glare at the desire demon. Or seemed to since he didn’t actually have eyes.

She looked at him sharply. “She fell on the border between our territories so you’re **still** wrong.” The new spirit noticed then that it wasn’t just the wall that was split in two. A line -jagged but there- ran between the two demons and under his own feet and then off some ways into the distance. The room on the side that had the shifting changing wall was filled to the brim with gold and jewels one moment and then some other luxury the next. A chandelier made of crystal hung from the ceiling before vanishing, then a tapestry, then golden jewel encrusted lamp, and on and on in a dizzying display of opulent wealth as though the room couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to be. 

And on the other side there was death. 

Or more accurately dead bodies. 

The room with excessive luxuries might be constantly changing but the fear demon’s domain was stagnant and dark. There was also an _unbelievably_ bad smell coming from that side. Corpses and bits and pieces of rotting body parts in various stages of decay. He thought that in one shadowy corner there was a pile of bodies that looked like they had been piled together into some kind of _nest,_ and shuddered at the sight. 

The fear demon fumed and growled before gritting out between his teeth. “Leave, stranger. This mortal is taken. Or will be at any rate once she leaves.”

“Oh as _if._ You know this one is mine.”

The new spirit wavered in place. That wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting from them. Granted he knew his thoughts were still very fuzzy but he did at least remember that he couldn’t let demons have a child. That much was clear at least. He reached for the leather pouch filled with salt he always-

He paused. 

Salt was something from the physical world and didn’t technically exist inside the fade. His lights flickered and settled into an agitated swirl. Why would he-? 

He angrily flashed and shook his head to dislodge the thought; the demons were obviously playing some kind of trick. The new spirit growled out, “You will stop this at once! Do not make me ask again, demons!”

The desire demon very slowly turned back to him with an exaggerated pout, sharp contradictory spikes of angry light sparked from her frame. “I do so **hate** being interrupted. And I **_hate_** getting my claws dirty, but what’s a girl to do?” She smiled sweetly and then lunged at him, claws drawn, screaming, and all her lights jagged and sharp.

He just barely scrambled out of the way in time, blocked the first swipe of her claws with his shield, and kicked her back before swinging his sword down. She rolled with the kick and was already moving again lightning fast. The blade sliced harmlessly through the empty spot where she had just been moments before. She would lunge and he would spin out of reach. He would swing his sword in for a strike and she would already be moving out of the way. They each out maneuvered or parried blows, swirling faster and faster. 

The new spirit viciously berated himself in his mind and called himself every profanity he could think of. He was a **fool** to rush in like this. If he fell during this fight the demons **would** eat the girl with none the wiser. He should have- 

_“-Instincts! Trust your instincts! Never focus on what should’ve happened during a fight, it’ll get you killed.” He watched General Lavellan talk to a group of young warriors and felt a bittersweet swell of nostalgia. He’d heard that humans couldn’t tell the age of their own kind unless they were withered; elves were more sensible. You told the age of a person by their eyes. And General Lavellan **was** ancient, but he had been caught outside the quarantine. He wasn’t contagious anymore, they had figured out how to stop it from spreading to others at least, but the damage was done. _

_Streaks of silver had already begun to show in his red hair. _

_No one knew how to cure the withering sickness once someone became infected, and the humans feigned ignorance of the plague they had brought. The General knew his time was limited, and spent every waking moment teaching with an almost frantic energy. “You won’t have the luxury of time to fret about on the field with a blade at your throat or arrows threatening your backside.” Passing on all of his knowledge had become a race against the clock, and the clock was wining._

_He took a deep shaky breath, straightened his spine, and knocked on the open door startling his old teacher. “Sir? I apologize for the interruption, but we’ve had word that-”_

Claws caught on the edges of his armor and drew an angry confused shout from him. The sudden searing pain successfully ripped him out of the strange vision. He rolled out of the way before the desire demon could dig her claws in deeper. Bluish white mist oozed from the cut. 

What _was_ that?

She let a small tinkling laugh adding small pops to the jagged angry light emanating from her. The desire demon sighed happily and licked the glowing white icor off her claws before she smirked and said, “You should have _ran_ little spirit. Silly little puff thinks he can fight, it’s almost charming really.”

He rose to his feet with a snarl at the jibe, and caught her on the next strike with his blade. A jagged ink black cut opened up wide and deep in her arm. 

She lept back oozing black mist from her wound and for a moment her mouth just gaped open, too shocked to speak. The shock on her face quickly shifted to cold fury, her tail lashed back and forth as her lights sharpened into razor points, and her voice became shrill, “How _dare_ you, HOW **_DARE_** YOU! This is my territory, MINE. What right have you to come in here and interrupt my meal?!” She lept at him again, lights flashing sharp with pain and fury, and shrieking loud enough that the new spirit almost thought she might split the fade with her noise. 

Pain seemed to have made her sloppy though. He saw his opening and drove the blade all the way through the demon’s chest, her scream became a quiet choked off noise. She dropped to her knees. And then as though her form had been made of sand and muck she slowly collapsed in on herself, and began to evaporate. Her tail was the last to go, it gave one final twitch before liquefying and the last trace of her light went out. Black sludge like energy dripped from his blade and puddled at his feet, and then even that evaporated. 

Silence.

The glittering shifting changing room was no longer tethered to The Fade and began to slowly disappear. She was dead. He should feel proud that he had killed a demon, but mostly he just felt sick. It didn’t have to end like this. She could have just walked away. Demon or not he would have _let_ her walk away.

A slow clap drew him out of his thoughts and suddenly reminded him that there had been _two_ demons, not one.

“Well done.” Laughed the fear demon. He patted the shaking child on the head making the girl flinch, before turning back to him again. “I’ve had the misfortune of being neighbors with her for well over five thousand years now. I’ve always **hated** her.” He smiled. His tone took on a cheerful almost dreamy quality, “You’ve done me quite the favor.” The way his lights writhed and slashed said otherwise. 

The new spirit warily adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword and for a brief moment considered just charging him and getting the fight over with already. The little girl caught his gaze and another idea occurred to him. He looked back at the fear demon who had begun to float towards him. The new spirit tried to look relaxed and sound bored, “The girl is small. A child. She would barely even qualify as a meal.” The glint coming from the shiny shell across the demon’s eyes reflected the light strangely, and for half a second he thought he saw an almost familiar face reflected. He continued, “Let her go and you can take me instead.” A lie, but depending on the creature’s greed-

“No.” Said the fear demon mildly, still smiling, and still drifting closer at a steady pace. The sharp spikes in his lights had smoothed somewhat, but there was still an odd edge to it. He spoke with a pleasant conversational tone, “You know… I don’t think my late neighbor had any _real_ intention of killing you -not until your blow actually struck, of course.” The room of bones and rot slowly but surely began to expand until it encompassed everything around them. The new spirit flinched when he felt himself sinking into the muck up to his ankles and tried not to think about exactly what kind of liquid had begun to seep into his boots. The demon continued to float just above it and sneered, “I’ve seen her play with her food far too often only for her to just let it go again once something else caught her fickle attention.” Something about the demon’s voice was different. 

Unnerving. 

The fear demon stopped just in front of the new spirit and loomed over him. He looked him over as though considering livestock and mused quietly, “I _could_ eat you, of course. Doubling the size of my dinner is a charming idea, and it is so very boring waiting for the unwary to take a wrong turn and get nicely trapped in one of my cozy webs. But you’re not very frightened right now. I’m really not sure how much effort it will take to scare you enough to make you palatable.” 

“You sounded different before, More guttural and sharp.-” The new spirit pointed out, stalling. He tamped down his revulsion before he could accidentally broadcast it and then caught the little girl’s eye again. After a pause she seemed to catch on that he was stalling the demon and started scooting to the side, and deeper into the shadows. The spirit looked back at the fear demon and deliberately pushed out a false feeling of boredom, “I hope you weren’t trying to impress me with showy false politeness and a different voice.”

The demon’s polite smile broke into a wide sharp tooth grin, his teeth were practically the size of daggers, needle sharp and stretching an already monstrous face into something even more unsettling. A small ripple of fear went through the new spirit before he could block it. 

Predatory hunger suddenly rolled off of the demon in a wave. “Ah yes I see! You’re not a fan of my teeth, eh? Well you know what they say, you can’t go wrong with the classics. Stick to the basics of a good scare I say. And who said a demon can’t be polite? You can’t really blame me for trying a different approach.” He sniffed the air and his grin became just a little sharper. “Especially not when it invokes the desired response. Even if only slightly. This shows… potential.” 

The fear demon slowly began to morph, changing shape till he was looking at a twisted version of what could almost pass for a human man in armor. A general’s uniform, supplied something in the back of his mind. But in a twisted nightmarish sort of a way. He frowned, the face seemed familiar, he brushed the thought aside. He waved his shield hand at the demon, “What’s this form supposed to be?”

“I-” the fear demon stopped and looked down at him with the new eyes he’d just created, clearly confused. “What do you mean this ‘form,’ don’t you recognize this human?” The demon spread his arms wide as if to help display his new look to a better advantage. 

The new spirit perused his lips behind his helmet and said, “No. I think we’re done here.” and lunged forward with his sword, the demon almost simultaneously dodged out of the way. 

The little girl had backed up completely out of sight and hopefully had heard his conversation with the demon. If he couldn’t stop the demon then she needed to be brave, that was about the only thing that might give her a chance to escape the demon if the new spirit fell trying to stop him. Hopefully he’d kill the demon. He’d just been born, he didn’t want to be eaten. But at the very least, armed with the information he’d drawn out for her, she’d have a fighting chance to calm her nerves hopefully making her unappealing to the demon.

One moment the fear demon was swiping out with a clawed hand, the next he had a two handed broadsword that he swung in a huge arch aiming for the new spirit’s head. He just barely ducked in time, sparks came off his helmet where the blade grazed him. 

“Do you mind standing still? I’d so much rather eat you in pieces.” The demon asked cheerfully as he swung his sword again with a manic smile on his face. The new spirit brought up his own blade just in time and grimaced when the two blades screeched against each other in a small shower of sparks. 

The new spirit kicked the demon back and bashed his shield against the demon’s face before the creature darted out of the way once more. “No I don’t think so.” He called out after it. 

“I’m sure we could approach this reasonably.” The demon replied from somewhere in the shadows. The new spirit spun around and realized he didn’t know where the demon had gone. “I could eat you slowly for a time. Perhaps with just a finger to start? I’m sure you wouldn’t miss it.” 

The new spirit took a deep breath and closed his eyes, focused everything in him on his other senses. There. He spun out of the way just in time as the demon attacked again and brought up his own sword catching the demon’s blade and deflecting it. “Afraid not. I’m rather partial to my fingers.” He was perfectly aware that he could regrow any lost limbs -even his head theoretically- but it would take time. And each piece of himself removed would make him weaker, and easier to kill. Not to mention any parts cut off from himself that the demon absorbed would only make the creature stronger. 

For a moment his mind stuttered on the thought. It seemed… odd that he already knew much of how this worked. 

He swung out at the demon but he had already twirled out of the way and back into the shadows. The new spirit cursed under his breath. He knew this tactic. The demon was trying to wear him down. Make him an easier target. He kept turning with the little hints of sound he heard trying to track the demon’s movements. What he _really_ needed was more light-

As soon as he thought the word a ball of fire flickered into existence floating above his head and lit up a much larger area around him. 

Oh right. The Fade.

The larger circle of light around him brought with it a clear view of the fear demon and his kingdom of corpses.

The demon was crouched down and looked like he had been getting ready to pounce. He had abandoned the ‘human’ shape and was back in his original form with a deep frown on the part of his face not covered by shell. He snorted and growled out, “Spoilsport.” And then he lept. The demon slammed into his chest and knocked him flat on his back into the rot with a soft squelch. 

The new spirit twisted with the momentum from the throw and rolled on top. His shield was stuck in the rot but he had managed to keep a hold of his sword and swung down. The demon grabbed the blade barehanded and managed to stop it just shy of his throat, he grimaced in pain, and tendrils of black mist oozed from his palms where the blade was biting into flesh. All the new spirit needed to do was put his weight into it and he’d take the demon’s head, and then he could go for the heart. No demon would win this day, not if he had anything to say about it. The light glinted off his sword, just like-

_-“Where do you think you’re going?” his mother said with a laugh, her eyes twinkling. She knelt down in front of him so they were eye to eye, and he shyly gave back the sword he’d taken from the stand by the front door. He knew he wasn’t supposed to touch father’s sword, but it was shiny and-_

**PAIN.**

The new spirit startled back into the moment confused and disoriented. He was laying on his back in the muck and rot. Something that felt suspiciously like bones was poking into his side. Pain radiated outwards from his head and back in an unpleasant throb from being thrown.

The fear demon stood over him sneering and holding the huge broadsword from before in one hand. “Rude. Well at least without your mouth you won’t be able to sass me while I eat you.” He swung the blade up into the air and the new spirit just barely rolled out of the way in time. The blade sunk into the rot with a sickening “Thwack!” just where the spirit’s head had been moments before. 

The demon tried to yank the sword back out but it stuck. The new spirit didn’t pause this time and drove the sword up into the demon’s chest. 

For a creature without eyes the fear demon had an almost comical look of shock on his face. 

“You…” the rest of the demon’s words became a gurgle and then he fell sideways into the rot and began to disintegrate. 

The new spirit propped himself up on his elbows and watched as the room of corpses slowly disappeared as the fear demon liquified. Thankfully the liquids that had seeped into his armor through the cracks evaporated as well leaving him as clean as he’d been at the start, albeit carrying a few new wounds. 

And a few yards away sat the little girl.

It was quiet in the fade. Without either of the demons present the landscape returned to it’s neutral state of anything and everything. Mostly it just looked like a lot of green fog. 

The new spirit stood up with a small sigh leaving his sword and shield behind. There was no reason to pick them up; they weren’t anymore physical than he was and would come or go as he willed them, so long as he remembered to do so. He walked over to the little girl and sat down in front of her. Her face was somber and tearstained but she seemed to have stopped crying. 

There was a long awkward pause as the spirit tried to figure out what he should say. Children shouldn’t see fights like that, and they certainly shouldn’t see demons. Should he start with an apology? 

“Thank you for stopping them.”

He jumped at that and realized he had just been staring blankly at the ground lost in his thoughts and felt a guilty twinge. “It’s my duty to protect people.” He wasn’t sure why that sentence came out of his mouth on it’s own like that, but it felt- _-“We who stand guard before the council of Arlath-”_ He swished his energy and shook the odd vision away. The demons were dead, why was he still getting fragmented images?

She nodded thoughtfully. “Oh. Thank you.” She paused and then looked up at him, “I think… I… I’m dead. I am, aren’t I?”

The new spirit tilted his head, there was no silver cord connecting her to the physical world. Tattered silver sparks drifted from her, but only faintly and seemed to be slowing down to a stop. She must have died very recently. Something about that thought twinged in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t place why. “I believe so. I am sorry.”

She went quiet again before asking him, “Where do I go? Can I go home?”

He shook his head and stood offering her a hand up, “I don’t know, but if you’d like I can help you ask around until we find out. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a wisdom spirit to ask.”

“Okay.” She wiped a hand at her eyes and took his hand with a wobbly looking smile. He helped her stand and she dusted her skirts down. Her ears flicked as she tilted her head to look at him, “I’m Lanril. What’s your name?”

He blinked. “I…” Name…? He must have one of those. “I… I am…” _Sword and light and blood. Blood blood blood. So much blood. So many are dead. No. Don’t think about that. Don’t let them hear your voice shake, they need you to be strong. You can mourn after the battle. “Hold fast, **hold fast!** Don’t let the bastards through! We will serve **justice** this day to these murderers! May Mythal watch over us as we-!”_ He shuddered and the fragment stopped there. What **was** that? The little girl was still looking up at him expectantly. She wanted something to call him by. “You may call me…” One of the words from the fragment stuck out and then clicked. “I am Justice.” He finally said. That sounded… that was good. Yes. He looked at the last curling trails of energy that had once been a pair of demons. 

Just a smear in the fade now.

Yes. 

His name was Justice.


	2. Laugh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many, many years later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small FYI for anyone who didn’t follow my blog before tumblr ate it or anyone that needs a reminder: it’s never explained in canon what the background is for the elf mage origin in the first game and the writers have never explained it so I decided that my warden is actually from the Lavellan clan and was kidnapped by templars when she was three. Because she was too young to know what a last name was she was given ‘Surana’ by the circle as an identifier for her last name. (Basically Thedas version of ‘Jane Doe’ or ‘Jane Smith.’) She’s also the inquisitor’s older sister, although she doesn’t know that. And my inquisitor grew up hearing how the chantry kidnapped her older sister before she was born and led a very sheltered life before DAI because of it. I don’t know if either of them will ever get proper stories -I've kinda been losing steam on this fandom- but I thought it would be a good idea for some context to be added because story reasons.

Many, many years later:

Justice didn’t like the rain. 

Technically speaking he couldn’t actually _feel_ it since he was currently trapped in a corpse. 

_Kristoph_, he reminded himself sharply, internal lights flickering on a wince. And Kristoph’s corpse certainly didn’t have any of it’s senses left active being dead and all so he wasn’t able to really experience rain the way a living mortal would. It had been months now since the night he got kicked out of The Fade and he still hadn’t figured out how to turn on the nerves responsible for feeling physical sensations. He was lucky he had been able to figure out how to get the eyes to work and most of the parts to move. 

For a moment he tried to take stock of his life. Tried to pinpoint where things went so wrong to be able to find himself cast adrift in the _mortal plane_ of all places. He’d very happily lived for thousands of years in The Fade, and not once had he ever felt any desire to set foot outside. Eons spent chasing down demons, saving lost souls, and righting wrongs. Now he was stuck in an utterly alien landscape with the memories of a dead man rattling around inside his mind and a gnawing guilt that he had accidentally possessed a corpse when he got tossed out of The Fade. Possessed. Actually possessed a corpse. Like a blasted _demon_. He shuddered. Not to mention he really had no idea what would happen if he tried to _leave_ said corpse. 

He wasn’t even sure how to go home. 

He fidgeted as he tried and failed to avoid the next logical, terrifying, thought; that he might not ever be _**able**_ to go home.

Justice very quickly went back to considering the rain.

To be fair, rain seemed to be a harmless occurrence, and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to experience new things. He’d heard the mage Anders babble repeatedly during their trek that day about how wonderful the rain felt, so he would have been curious to try out the sensation for himself if he could. 

Mostly the rain annoyed him because after being in the wet for a while his armor would start to stick and occasionally -if they were out long enough, like today for example- make annoying squeaking noises.

He hated the squeaking.

“-and then _she_ said, ‘those aren’t **my** shoes!’”

“Do you ever shut up, Anders?” Sighed Nathaniel. 

Anders paused with his mouth open before he snapped it shut. A mean smile slowly curled the mage’s lips and he leaned into the archer’s personal space and said with a sweet sounding voice, “You weren’t complaining about it last night.” Nathaniel’s face flushed an interesting shade of beet red. “In fact I believe you said something about wanting me to scream something. I believe it was your name. But if you _really_ want me to be quiet we could just slip behind that tree over there and I’m sure we can find a better use for my tongue-”

“Go easy on him, Anders, besides we’re almost there. I think.” Commander Surana called over her shoulder absently still studying her waterproof map as the sky continued to pour down over them. She was a tiny eccentric elven mage, and had so far shown to be an even tempered curious sort of person. Unless she was speaking to a member of the templar group, in which case all bets were off.

Speaking to templars was actually the first time he’d seen her get really truly angry.

Justice flickered worriedly which translated into a frown. He listened to the two men bicker for a while as he thought before he finally spoke up, _“Commander, perhaps we should stop for a bit. And set up camp.”_ The argument between Anders and Nathaniel raised in volume slightly.

The Commander looked over her shoulder at him with a small frown. Her long red hair had spilled out of her hood during their trek and a few strands had somehow plastered themselves to her forehead with the wet. She lowered the map she’d been studying. “What? Why?”

_“Nathaniel’s face has changed colors. You’ve told me that usually only happens outside the Fade if a person consumes large quantities of alcohol or if they have become ill. We have no alcohol in our bags so therefore he must be ill.”_

Both men stopped arguing to stare at him for some reason. Nathaniel ran a hand over his face and sighed. Anders bit his lip and made a strange almost strangled sounding snort as his shoulders started to shake. He turned to the archer who had become slightly redder and then said in an overly cheerful voice, “Yes, Nathaniel! Are you well? You seem a bit flushed!”

The Commander pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned, “That’s not, no. Justice, we’re adding another biology discussion to your lessons.”

Anders’ strangled sounding snorts became full blown laughter.

Nathaniel growled out a very rude word -which made Justice’s energy and eyebrows shoot up, and then stomped away from them gripping his bow as though he intended to strangle it. “I **hate** all of you. I’m going to go scout the area.”

“Do you want me to help you scout, my good Ser?” Anders called out cheerfully into the downpour.

“Get fucked, Anders.” The archer called back. 

“I’m trying!” 

The Commander sighed. “How in the void did the two of you start sleeping together?”

Anders shoved his hands back into his soaked pockets with a squelch and a grin, “We both got very drunk one night and started bonding over our mutual dislike for our fathers.”

Justice looked back and forth between them feeling rattled and a small knot of worry forming. Judging by their reactions, it looked like he said something wrong, but he didn’t know what. _“I apologize if I said something to upset all of you.”_

Anders knocked their shoulders together with a grin. “Nonsense. Nathaniel just needs to lighten up is all. But Luna- our _Commander_ is right; you could use a few more lessons on how living bodies work.” The last part came out with an embarrassed sounding laugh.

“Which is why you’re going to take over that job.” The Commander said looking up at Anders with an amused smile.

“Hey!”

“And you’ve known me since I was little so stop calling me _‘The Commander.’_”

Justice spent a lot of his time at night thinking in the great hall. When he’d first… ‘arrived’ in the mortal plane and started filling in for Kristoph there had been plenty for him to study while the others went into their rooms to do… _whatever_ it was they did at night. He’d been assigned a room as well, but wasn’t particularly sure what he was supposed to do in it. Not wanting to be impolite he’d thanked Luna for the room, and mostly just used it for weapon storage. An _oversized_ weapon storage room considering he only had the one sword and shield. And the armor of course, but he couldn’t see a reason to take that off. 

Most nights were spent studying in the great hall. Maps and treaties and battle plans. The battle plans reminded him of home right up until it didn’t, giving their battle discussions a surreal feeling as though he’d forgotten something important. The surreal feeling only got worse when the Commander was the one going over the battle plans. Sometimes -and only for a moment- he’d see an elven man instead of her looking over the maps during those moments. One who looked quite a bit like her -almost startlingly so- but with streaks of gray in his hair. An elven man wearing armor that he couldn’t place but seemed achingly familiar. Those moments were brief, but always made him feel a devastating sense of loss that he had been unable to place or understand so far. 

But The Mother had been dealt with. The Architect was dead. The nobles had _mostly_ stopped trying to assassinate the Commander. And suddenly he had more time to himself in the evenings to conduct his own studies of the world he had found himself in. 

Tonight he was studying shoes. 

He’d noticed a few times now that if they all went on long hikes looking for darkspawn together that eventually a few of the mortals would begin to say that their feet were killing them. Obviously the wounds hadn’t been fatal so far, and the physical appendages couldn’t be the culprit (what sort of creature would have a body that attacks itself?) Which left the shoes themselves. His current theory was that the shoes housed small creatures that didn’t like sharing their homes with mortal feet. Perhaps miniature crabs. He turned the boot he was holding this way and that before again peering inside trying to see if there were any latches or joints to suggest where the creatures were hiding so he could try reasoning with them. 

Anders walked into the great hall humming a song with a dreamy smile on his face. He was flushed, his clothing rumpled, and his hair had been half way pulled out of its ponytail. No lights came from that smile though, not even a flicker. Justice jumped slightly, the lack of lights while smiling startling him until he reminded himself, again, that mortals outside of The Fade didn’t glow when expressing their emotions -or ever really. It had been a fairly creepy discovery if he was being honest with himself, but after spending time getting to know a few of them he’d eventually decided it would probably be incredibly impolite to say as much. It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t know how to glow. Justice did frown however when he noticed that the mage was also limping. _“Anders, have you been injured?”_

Anders’ smile turned into a grin and he flopped into the seat next to him. “Only in the very **best** of ways, my friend.” 

Justice opened his mouth to ask what that meant but stopped himself at the last second. Up close he could see circular bruises beginning to form on the sides of his neck. Last time when he’d asked about the bruises Anders had referred to them as ‘hickies.’ Knowing what he’d seen of the mortal so far the limp probably had something to do with coupling. 

Instead he set down the boot he’d been studying and asked, _“What is tonight’s lesson?”_ True to her word the Commander had assigned Anders to teach him more about the mortal world and how to interact with it. She’d only instructed him to teach Justice for a few nights but they’d been having these evening chats for well over a month now. Justice enjoyed them greatly and Anders seemed to enjoy them too considering he kept showing up even though he wasn’t being instructed to any longer. 

“We’ve covered most of the big stuff, I think. Though it is kinda hard to tell which parts you still don’t know. But I was thinking you could set the direction for tonight’s thing.” Anders waved a hand in emphasis, “What kind of lesson would you like tonight?”

_“Hm. Well. Can it be a personal question instead of a worldly question?”_

“Hey, so long as it’s not ‘how big is it?’, go nuts.”

Justice tilted his head as he tried to figure out what object or objects he was theoretically not supposed to ask for the size of but decided whatever it was he was probably better off not asking about it. Instead he said, _“I still do not understand why you do not wish to fight against your oppressors. You speak of the wrongs that have been committed against you as if you are alone; our Comman- Luna has expressed the same resentment for the chantry’s ways.”_

Anders froze before he relaxed again and the smile became a smirk, “This again? She’s just as much a mage as I am so it doesn’t count. A mage’s opinion _never_ counts.” A bitter edge crept into the end of his sentence. 

Justice considered that. _“But her opinion matters to a king. I may be from The Fade, but I do know kings are a type of leader for mortals. She was able to make her case for justice to him and convince him of it’s validity. He has since then banned the practice of caging mages in this country.”_

Anders cut in sharply. “Which the chantry has been >b>ignoring! I doubt the mages in the Fereldan circle even know they’ve been freed officially. Everyone back in the circle knew the chantry would edit any information they gave us. There were always inconsistencies with the books.” He shook his head with a disgusted look, “From what I’ve heard they’ve locked the circle tighter than it ever was before, and sent Karl-” He cut himself off with a pained expression. He took a long shaky breath and went quiet, gaze firmly locked on the floor.

Justice paused, something else was wrong here, but it didn’t look like Anders was willing to talk about it and he wasn’t sure how to coax it out. For a brief moment he wished he had been born a spirit of compassion. Justice had no qualms with who he was, what he was, but he had no illusions either. Being a spirit of justice did not come with a lot of gentleness. No matter how much he wished for it to be otherwise, he would always be something of a blunt instrument. _“How long have mages been imprisoned?”_

“For over a thousand years, give or take a few decades.” Anders said through clenched teeth. 

_“And have there been rebellions in these circles?”_

Anders looked up with a frown. “No, of course not.”

Justice considered that and then rephrased his question, _“You have said that the religious leaders lied to you on many occasions, would they tell you if there **had** been a rebellion?”_

A worried look slowly settled onto the mage’s face. “I… I don’t- I mean... If there had been I doubt they’d want us to know, they’d probably hide information like that, but it’s not like you can hide a whole tower of mages fighting back-” Anders sucked in a sharp breath like he’d been struck. “Annulment.”

Justice frowned, _“What?”_

Anders seemed to visibly wilt in his chair and explained what the right of annulment entailed. How if the templars in a circle deemed it beyond ‘salvation’ they would then slaughter every man woman and **child** in the building. Justice felt his lights start to swirl sickly as he listened to his friend list off the details with a tired matter of fact tone of voice. The mages in Anders’ circle had always been told that over the last thousand years only 5 annulments had happened, but since leaving he’d discovered the numbers were closer to twenty, possibly more. And because all mages involved would already be dead by the time any paperwork on the subject was processed the reports were always written exclusively by templars.

Specifically the same templars that had just finished killing everyone in the tower in question. 

Justice took a moment to rein in his horror over what he had just learned and silently swore to take a sword to any templars he could get his hands on. He lowered his voice slightly but it was still a little gravelly with lingering anger, _“And what of the people outside of these circles?”_

“What about them?”

_“If mages spend so much time caged I imagine that many mortals have never conversed with one, in such a scenario how would they know they have been lied to by your religious leaders?”_

Anders took a long shuddering breath before slumping even more in his chair. “Even if you were right, it doesn’t change the fact that if I tried to talk to chantry officials about changing things I’d also be within **stabbing** distance. I’d be lucky if I got the words ‘hi how are you’ out before someone yelled _‘kill the robe’_ and **stabbed** me.”

Justice went still and blinked slowly. He hadn’t been suggesting Anders specifically for this scenario, the mage had already made it very clear he was afraid of templars. And from what he’d seen and heard the mortal had every right to be angry or scared or both. Mainly Justice was baffled by his friend’s lack of action. But if this was where the conversation was going he didn’t disagree with the idea of Anders taking up arms in the name of freedom. Still, not wanting to be stabbed was a good point. You couldn’t fight if you were dead. _“Are there no forms of communication at a distance in this realm?”_

“What?”

Justice frowned as he tried to figure out how to word his question. Concepts like friendship and lovers existed in the mortal plane but several times now he’d brought up other concepts or customs that he’d thought would be just as universal only to receive a blank or confused stare. _“In The Fade we could leave messages for others by attaching songs or memories or images to balls of energy. We could even send those messages far distances. Energy straight from The Fade could be used of course, but the safest type of energy to use to avoid someone tampering with it was your own. But using your own energy makes the act of sending information a little daunting at times and there is always the danger of a demon stealing the energy from a message for one reason or another. Additionally having to tear apart some of your own energy to send information can leave a spirit weakened for a while and an easy target. Some spirits offer their services in guarding these messages for others to lower some of the strain. Sometimes even watching over messages for far distances or through dangerous terrain. I imagine there must be **something** similar here, but I have been wrong before.”_

Anders had an odd look on his face. “That sounds like… Do you mean you had mail? I hadn’t realized spirits had a postal service.”

Justice frowned again. _“Then those services **are** available here? I had thought removing parts of your bodies caused injury or even death in this realm? Perhaps it is instead a matter of **how** limbs are removed? How long does it take your people to regrow body parts?”_

Anders stared at Justice with a blank expression before finally saying, “It’s ah… No. That’s not how writing is done. Not with body… parts. Oooookay, that’s… Alright. We’ll do another lesson on anatomy tomorrow night. And one on writing, I think.” A dawning look of some kind of realization slowly bloomed across his face and suddenly a laugh bubbled out of Anders. And for the first time Justice couldn’t hear a hint of bitterness or fear in that laugh. The mage stood up abruptly. “A quill. I need a quill. And some paper.”

Anders had rushed halfway across the great hall before he slowed to a stop. The fire crackled, and other than the mage’s breathes the room was quiet. He turned around with a determined expression and faced Justice. “Thank you, Justice.”

The spirit tilted his head at the strange display from his friend, but nodded anyway. And then Anders rushed from the room. 

It would take Justice some time to find out about it, but that was the first night Anders started working on his manifesto.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, comments are appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are very welcome. You can also find me on Twitter these days (same username as on here.)


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